


The Empty Dawn

by flowerofnettles



Series: Seo Gaestlufe/The Soul's Love [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Knows About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Court Sorcerer Merlin, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hurt Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Hurt/Comfort, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Merthur - Freeform, Pining, Post-Camlann, Protective Merlin, Rescue Mission, The Dark Tower - Freeform, Worried Merlin, badass merlin, canon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-03-20 17:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18997336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerofnettles/pseuds/flowerofnettles
Summary: Merlin turned back to the guard.“Sound the warning bell,” he commanded, his chest tight and his hands beginning to tremble. “Someone used black magic to abduct the king.”After searching every hour of every day for four months, a desperate and exhausted Merlin begins to realize that the knights' gossip about his feelings for their king might not be as ridiculous as he'd thought.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I REALLY appreciate the kudos and comments I’ve gotten on the previous fics in this series (The Fall of Camelot rewrite and The King He Had Created, found on my page)! The story has been strictly friendship and not very slashy up until now, but that’s all about to change, my friends. x) This fic marks the real turning point in Merlin and Arthur’s relationship for this series and it’s my favorite one so far, so let me know how you liked it!  
> Some other important notes: Most Old English spells/enchantments come directly from the Merlin wikia spell page at https://merlin.fandom.com/wiki/Spells and have been used before in the show. There is one I wrote myself in the second chapter, and I did translate it but if you happen to be an expert in Old English, I’m sorry in advance. Also note that this fic is NOT rated for mature audiences. For this one, it’s all about the one-sided pining, protective!Merlin, and hurt/comfort cuddles. Hope you enjoy!

Merlin had practiced for years at hiding the pride he felt when he watched Arthur fight.

It wasn’t necessarily that he didn’t want Arthur to know. On the contrary, he told Arthur he was proud of him all the time, especially these days when the king’s wise and benevolent plans proved well-designed and the kingdom was flourishing like never before. Every day the people grew happier and healthier, the army increased in noble knights from rich and poor families alike, and the presence of magic slowly multiplied as more sorcerers went out from under Merlin’s inspiration to spread their knowledge to others with potential talent. 

More than that, Arthur himself was flourishing like never before. In the last few months, he had determinedly turned painful memories into happy nostalgia, never speaking of anything or anyone he’d lost except in the fondest of terms. He lived each day with as much blithe energy as when he’d been a vibrant young prince—even more so, in fact, because now he had gained security in his ability to lead and protect his citizens and was rarely troubled with self-doubt any longer. He was more approachable and open toward his people, his friends, and most of all toward Merlin, from whom he hardly ever tried hiding his thoughts or feelings anymore. He was golden, full of courage and light, and everyone in the castle automatically beamed when they passed him in the halls (though he never even realized it). He was the legendary perfect king…so yes, Merlin had every reason in the world to be proud of Arthur, and he was.

It was just so _fun_ to watch him try so hard to impress him and then get so very annoyed when Merlin just shrugged noncommittally from the sidelines.

“I’d like to see you try it,” the king snapped at him with dissatisfaction, and then poured a canteen of water inelegantly down his throat.

Merlin glanced up to where the three soldiers were just picking each other up off the practice field. This was the first time Arthur had taken on _three_ while wearing the blindfold, and yet he’d still had them all on the ground in record time. If Merlin weren’t absolutely certain his friend had no magical skill whatsoever, he would almost be suspicious.

“Nah,” he answered dismissively. “I just had a bath and”—He made a show of sniffing the air in Arthur’s space.—“you smell terrible.”

Arthur glanced at him, and possibly he wanted to look annoyed but he only succeeded at amusement as he tossed the canteen aside and his breathing started to slow. They both knew he was hardly sweating and smelled just fine.

“It’s the scent of the warrior, Merlin,” he answered back, gesturing around them with a showy robustness. “This is what we’re known for across all the five kingdoms.”

“Needing a bath? I believe it.”

“No.”

The king leant down and lowered his voice, holding his sorcerer’s gaze evenly.

“Having the courage and skill to stand against anyone, anywhere, at any time.”

He stood straight again, sliding his sword from its sheath in one graceful movement.

“But if you’re scared you’ll be made a fool of,” he announced for all the training ground to hear, “well, I can understand that. Only the very best can fight whilst deprived of sight.”

Their eyes met, and the challenge in each set of blue was so playful they both nearly dropped the facade and laughed aloud. However, Merlin managed to keep a straight face and turned his smirk into a nonchalant shrug.

Arthur, on the other hand, grinned outright when his friend stood and reached for the discarded blindfold on the bench.

The men cheered, punching one another companionably as their beloved king and sorcerer stepped onto the dry dirt together. The cheers increased when Merlin knotted the cloth at the back of his head and his vision was cut off completely even with the bright late summer sunlight.

“Ready, Merlin?”

The voice came from his left. Arthur was already moving, to confuse him.

“Ready," he answered, holding up his hands at his sides so that the invisible shield could encircle him closely when he summoned it.

There was no sound except for the low talking of the watching men, and Merlin focused his hearing for any clink of armor or brush of boots on the dusty ground. But Arthur was not just quick and strong; he was quiet. For all his bluster, he could move as silent as a mouse through an overgrown field when he chose.

The first blow he heard coming; the near-silent whistle of the dull metal blade cutting the air close to his right ear was his only warning. 

_“Scildan!”_

The sword lightly struck his invisible shield with a dull thud.

A quiet murmur of approval filled the air from each side, and Arthur let out an entertained huff just in front of him.

“Very good, sorcerer,” he complimented willingly. “But will you be so lucky next time?”

Merlin bit his lip and fought off a smile as a wave of determination swept over him. He was not a warrior—never had been and never would be, no matter how many mock battles he watched on this field or how close he stood to the tournaments each spring. But as Arthur had said, he was a sorcerer, and his magic was running through his veins at full-force, anxious to protect him from the unseen blows even if they were only pretend.

The next one came a little less expectedly, and he jumped to one side as he called the shield to cover his leg. The sword thudded against it again, and he reoriented himself solidly on the ground and took in a quick, deep breath. He had never understood the appeal of fighting, but he could suddenly, after all these years, understand the thrill of it—especially since he could hear Arthur’s quiet, awed laughter amongst the men’s. A moment later, three more blows came in succession, right-left-right, and he let his instincts guide where he formed his shield. With each strike he blocked, Arthur pushed him backwards a couple of steps. Unwilling to disappoint, Merlin pushed back, holding the shield before him as he stepped forward again, forcing Arthur back until the king sidestepped and he lost him again in the darkness.

They continued like this until finally Arthur, not used to fighting on these terms, made his first rare mistake. They had somehow wound up on the edge of the field—where the other weapons and loose armor were laid in a pile. He heard Arthur’s boot step onto something flat and metallic, and Merlin seized onto the sound.

_“Onstyrian, onbregdan!”_

He heard clearly when the item—possibly a metal shield—whipped out from under his friend, and the man lost his balance. At Arthur’s small cry of dismay, Merlin pushed forward one last time with his shield, intending to knock him fully to the ground and pin him.

However, he should have known Arthur was much too skilled a warrior to fall so easily. He was not expecting the hand that grasped at his leg, bending his knee in an instant out from under him so that he collapsed sideways. He felt Arthur moving beside him, trying to roll quickly enough to hold Merlin down, but the warlock was as stubborn as his king. He, in turn, rolled to the side using his heel dug into the dirt, and sat up just before Arthur grabbed at his collar.

_“Hleap on baec!”_

Arthur’s hand on his shirt meant that when the spell knocked him backwards, he took Merlin with him. Merlin, half-atop his friend, scrambled to plant both hands on each of Arthur’s shoulders and tossed out one last spell.

_“Beon rest!”_

“Oy, hang on!”

Arthur’s irritable protest assured him that his spell had worked; he pushed himself up a little bit and pulled off the blindfold.

His friend hadn’t been sweating before, but he was now, and he was glaring up at Merlin disgruntledly.

Merlin looked down for a moment in smug amusement as Arthur struggled to move, but his magic had him stuck fast to the ground and no amount of force he exerted could lift him up. Finally, the king relented and relaxed with a sharp exhale that tickled Merlin’s face and smelled of the grape jam they’d shared that morning at breakfast.

“There are times, Merlin,” said the king darkly, lifting his head up again to look into the sorcerer’s eyes, “when I think I liked you better before you had magic.”

Merlin’s laughter rang out across the field, and Arthur dropped his head back again and laughed along with him, a little breathlessly from the exercise.

Finally Merlin rolled off Arthur and did away with the spell, offering him a hand up and pulling him to his feet smoothly. The men cheered and hooted, some of them daring to tease Arthur a little for his never-before-seen loss, until finally their leader dismissed them all for the day with a brotherly admonishment that he’d be all the harder on them tomorrow.

Arthur shoved Merlin a little roughly as everyone began to disperse, and Merlin shoved him back with a grin as they went inside for lunch.

\-----------------------------------------------

They had only taken a few bites of the lunch already prepared on Arthur’s table when the king looked up from the document he’d just started reading.

“Merlin,” he said with a slight note of impatience.

“Mm?” he hummed around a too-large bite of roasted chicken.

“Where’s my sword with the broken handle? I told you to get it so I can give it to the servant. He’s taking it to be repaired today.”

Merlin winced apologetically and swallowed down his bite in one big gulp.

“Sorry,” he said. “I forgot.”

“Well, go and get it.”

He shot him an incredulous look, looking from him to his plate of steaming delicious food and back again.

“Go, Merlin, now, please.”

He sighed. Some things just never changed, but he couldn’t really argue. After all, Arthur had asked him twice right before they left the armory and he’d still somehow forgotten.

He thought about his chicken cooling on his plate the whole walk down to the lowest level of the castle, but just before he pushed open the cracked armory door he paused at the sound of his name from the other side. It sounded like Percival, and he was sure it was when another voice answered.

“I know what you mean,” said Elyan’s gentle lilt in honest amazement. “I wouldn’t want to be an enemy of Camelot, that’s for sure. Did you see the way he instinctively knew where Arthur’s blade would be?”

“And you can bet he wasn’t even trying his best, either,” Leon pointed out. “We don’t see it much anymore now that Morgana’s gone, but remember in that final battle? Not even the ancient myths tell stories like what I saw Merlin do with my own eyes at Camlann.”

“He’s wonderful,” agreed Elyan. “Everyone knows it.”

“I heard there are a dozen women in the court who would marry him on the spot if he asked,” Percival said with some definite amusement.

Merlin felt himself blush. Those rumors were always exaggerated, but it still embarrassed him to think that once he had been a nameless serving boy in the corner and now there were rumors like that. Even if it were true—which he highly doubted—those women hadn’t given him a second glance when he had just been gangly unimportant Merlin. He wasn’t sure how he would feel courting one of them, knowing that, and all in all he wasn’t really interested in any of them anyway. He was content with his life as it was.

“Yeah,” Gwaine was sighing with mock wistfulness. “It’s really too bad he’s claimed.”

At that, Merlin was startled from his wandering thoughts. He blinked in confusion and wondered if he’d heard correctly.

“Gwaine,” Leon said almost reproachfully, “you know they’re not.”

“Oh, I know _they_ think they’re not,” said their ever-joking friend, “but everybody else sees it as clear as day. I mean, you all know as well as I do there are quite a few knights who feel the same as the ladies of the court. But no one would ever dare, not when he looks at Arthur the way he does. You saw them on the field today. If Merlin had bent down a little more and kissed our king, I don’t think anyone would have been too surprised.”

Merlin felt himself gasp a little in an echo of alarm. In a flash he thought back to the field. Had his and Arthur’s physical closeness seemed unnatural? Neither of them had moved for a while as Merlin had pinned him, but he hadn’t felt odd or uncomfortable at all, and he was sure neither did Arthur.

“I’m surprised no rumors have gotten back to them yet,” Percival was saying. “I’ve heard plenty myself in the last few years.”

“I would almost believe the rumors sometimes,” said Leon hesitantly, “if I didn’t know them well enough.”

“I _do_ know them well enough,” said Gwaine, “and that’s why I believe it. Why do you think _I’ve_ never tried? If I wasn’t afraid Arthur would strike me down where I stood, I’d have swept Merlin away from him years ago.”

There was a rumble of disbelieving laughter from all of his friends, and then the conversation turned to all the girls Gwaine had been courting recently and how he must not be _too_ heartbroken about Merlin’s lack of interest—and that Merlin could strike him down just as easily as Arthur if he tried anything anyway. Teasing jibes filtered from the room, drifting away from the talk that had left the warlock stunned on the other side of the door. The very fact that they transitioned so smoothly into a different conversation was enough to leave him startled; it was clear they’d shared similar ideas before. He was sure they meant no harm, and it didn’t seem like there was anyone else in the room to overhear. These were his friends, and they cared for him and for Arthur as much as any friends possibly could.

As footsteps began to approach the door amongst their dwindling conversation, Merlin shook himself from his thoughts and pushed it open so that it looked as though he had just walked down. The men had no idea he’d heard anything as he greeted them quickly and collected the damaged helmet. He was going to keep it that way until he’d considered everything.

There was a meeting at the round table scheduled for the afternoon, and if Arthur noticed Merlin was being a bit quiet as he helped him dress for it, the king did not comment and simply thanked him with a clap to his arm.

As the meeting dragged on and the council tossed about topics Merlin had no interest in understanding, he found himself scrambling to think when the gossip might have started. Was it when he had given up a life of supposed perfect peace with their friends, King Saren and Prince Fenlore, to come home and be with Arthur again? Was it when Guinevere had died and Merlin had devoted himself to making sure Arthur recovered?

Was it before that?

More importantly, and perhaps more alarmingly, he couldn’t actually think of any protest to anything they’d said. It was probably true that he often looked at Arthur a way that might be misinterpreted; everyone in the land looked at Arthur with adoring love, but he was the one closest to their king and the only one who knew him so well. After everything they had endured and everything they’d accomplished—not to mention the fact that they were destined to be halves of each other—he thought he was allowed to display his feelings every once in a while. Arthur hadn’t protested yet so he hadn’t thought it was that obvious.

Merlin watched carefully as his friend addressed the council with easy authority, certain that he could not have any idea about these little rumors. Arthur was a man who did everything honestly, and to have his intentions toward Merlin questioned would surely have altered his behavior by now. But he was openly and publicly fond of his sorcerer, and his affectionate displays—a ruffle to Merlin’s hair, an arm slung around his shoulders, even the occasional embrace—were becoming increasingly frequent even outside of the privacy of his chambers.

Merlin felt himself frown a bit. If he were to tell Arthur of the rumors, those gestures would surely stop. He would be lying if he said he didn’t adore his friend’s slightly awkward attempts at tenderness. He had worked long and hard to give Arthur reasons to love him, and it almost made him angry to think that silly kitchen talk was going to take some of that away from him now.

Then a voice that sounded suspiciously like Gaius reminded him how childish he could be. If Merlin’s singleminded devotion gave the wrong impression, he would have to be more careful from now on. Arthur’s image was of the upmost importance. If there was gossip about his being in love with his servant-turned-sorcerer, it could harm him and the kingdom, especially should he decide to pursue a royal marriage again.

And if the thought of Arthur sharing his meals with someone other than Merlin bothered him, the sorcerer determinedly ignored it and tried to listen to the rest of the meeting’s discourse.

\-----------------------------------------------

“You were quiet tonight.”

Merlin blinked at the unobtrusive words, as he tugged the red tunic up over Arthur’s head and tossed it aside.

“I didn’t mean to be,” he answered, and that was the truth.

When he’d fetched Arthur’s white sleep tunic from the wardrobe, he turned to find his friend watching him with some small concern in his candlelit face.

“Is something wrong, Merlin?”

Despite his vow from earlier to take a few steps back, Merlin found himself wondering distraughtly if that gentle, attentive tone would be one of the things to disappear if Arthur found out about the rumors.

“No,” he said with a smile that was real enough, as he rolled up the oversized shirt and slipped it over the blonde head.

He helped Arthur get his arms through, and then turned to pick up the discarded clothes as the king went around to crawl into his bed.

“Are you sure?” Arthur asked as he pushed his feet under the blankets. “It’s not like you not to talk, and you hardly said a word all through dinner.”

Merlin tossed the dirty clothes into the basket by the wardrobe and felt an unexpected rush of affection for his friend that almost seemed ironic.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said more assuringly, as he moved to put out the candles around the room. “Just tired, I suppose.”

“Ah, yes,” Arthur called out with a teasing cadence, “that would be because of the exercise today on the field. You need building up.”

“Held you down, didn’t I?” he responded, as the room grew steadily darker and the comfortable silence seemed to suffuse the place from the sleeping world outside.

“That was magic,” Arthur answered unrelentingly, softly punching the pillows behind his head to lean back against them comfortably. “It was cheating.”

“You didn’t say it was cheating,” he replied slyly. “Not my fault you didn’t make the rules clear enough.”

“Ah, that was my mistake,” the king relented sarcastically with an amused light in his eyes.

The smile wasn’t quite as bright as it normally was, however, and it was Merlin’s turn to feel concerned.

“Are _you_ all right?” he asked when the king blinked slowly, as though he were dizzy.

“Hm? I’m fine,” his friend answered with a dismissive wave. “Just tired, that’s all. It hit me suddenly.”

Merlin took another moment to make sure he was telling the truth, but seeing nothing wrong except for the sleepiness dulling his friend’s eyes, he flicked one hand to put out the candles by the bedside with magic.

“Sleep well, sire,” he said sincerely.

When he got no response, he rounded the bed to leave and looked closely in the darkness. He realized, with a fond smile, that his king was already unconscious, curling up on his side with the blankets almost up to his eyes.

Merlin let his gaze linger for a moment, biting his lip as he thought back on the conversation he’d overheard earlier. He believed in the vow he’d made to himself; Arthur’s wellbeing came before his own casual wants, though it would break his heart more than anything to lose even a tiny bit of their closeness.

He realized suddenly where his thoughts were going and why they had been bothering him so much. He hadn’t realized it fully until now, but it really _would_ break his heart. He’d always craved Arthur’s trust and friendship, but when had his unreserved affection become this important too? The sorcerer’s heart fluttered every time he ruffled his fingers through Merlin’s hair as they laughed together, or put his hand at the small of his back to guide him out of the way of some passerby, or pulled him close to his side to whisper some little comment in his ear. Why, when, had he come to love those little moments so much?

As he turned to go with a troubled frown, he yawned so widely his jaw cracked in the total silence of the night. He thought back to what Gaius used to say—that it was never good to try working out a problem on an empty stomach or a tired brain. Whatever he needed to work out, it could be done tomorrow.

Only as it turned out, it couldn’t. When he went to wake Arthur for breakfast, the blankets were still pulled up high on the bed but the king was gone.

\-----------------------------------------------

“Arthur?” he called, and though it had only been a few heartbeats since he’d found the bed empty, a dark and heavy feeling of fear was forming in his chest. “Arthur, where are you?”

He glanced around the chambers but they were as quiet as when he’d left them last night. The clothes Merlin had picked out for him were still draped over the changing screen, and his belt with all the castle keys was still lying on the bedside table where he’d thrown it. Arthur never went anywhere without those keys, and he almost never went anywhere in the morning before Merlin arrived for breakfast—not unless there was a dire emergency. But if there had been, he would’ve sent for Merlin to meet him.

The warlock leaned out into the hallway and called to the guard posted at the end.

“You there!”

The guard jumped into action and obediently approached him.

“Yes, my lord? How may I assist you?”

“Did the king leave here this morning?” Merlin asked, keeping a tight hold of the discomfort in his gut.

The guard looked surprised and confused, and Merlin’s discomfort grew.

“No, my lord, I haven’t seen him. I’ve been here since well before sunrise and I haven’t heard a thing. Perhaps he went out the servants’ back way.”

“N-no, I—”

A jolt of something icy went up Merlin’s spine. His magic had sensed something the moment he’d stepped foot in the king’s chambers that his slow mind was just now recognizing as a dark force. He glanced back up the hall to the open door of Arthur’s rooms, and something there felt ominous, like the lingering after-smell of burning meat or smoke left behind by a strike of lightning. Somehow he knew there was no time to spare searching the castle needlessly.

Merlin turned back to the guard.

“Sound the warning bell,” he commanded, his chest tight and his hands beginning to tremble. “Someone used black magic to abduct the king.”

\-----------------------------------------------

It had been four months since that terrible day, and though the sun continued to rise the same as it always had, every morning grew darker nonetheless for everyone in the kingdom. Scores of men had gone out and returned in despair, having searched every inch of the forests for their friend and ruler and having found nothing. Pairs of soldiers had raced throughout the land on horseback, announcing the tragedy to even the tiniest villages in hopes that someone, somewhere, knew _something_ , only to give up after a day or two and move onto the next village. Even without their efforts, the word had spread like wildfire, the people of Camelot frightened and overcome with worry for their beloved king. Everyone in the land was looking for signs of him every day, but it was all resulting in nothing at all.

All of it was useless, including Merlin’s magic. He had tried every spell he knew, every  
ancient incantation and homemade recipe he possessed, and it had achieved nothing. Every time he tried to see Arthur’s location in a bowl, the water turned black. Every time he tried tracing the remnants of the magic that had taken him, it tangled up and led him in new circles. Every time he tried to get even the barest sense of his friend’s safety, all he felt was nothingness.

He only did that twice before he became too afraid of what it might mean.

Whoever had planned this, they had planned it well. His magic was stronger than any other sorcerer’s, but even so it took a long while to undo such complex spellwork especially when the black magic was tinted with something stronger, something more ancient and powerful whose source he did not recognize. It was taking too long, much too long, for him to tear through the dark enchantments.

It had been four months, and everyone was beginning to give up hope. No one said so, but he could feel it in the way the council sheepishly asked for his opinion more and more in political matters, in how the knights looked less and less surprised at each failed search, in how there were fewer and fewer whispers as he passed through the courtyard each day on his way to follow the twisted magic until it tricked him again.

Everyone was giving up hope, but Merlin could not. How could he? Every night his magic was burning with alarm in his blood, giving him flashes of dreadful things in all of his dreams. His every waking moment was suffused with the fear that this was his life from now on, that he would spend the rest of his days wandering the castle alone where he’d once pattered happily after Arthur. He wondered if this would be his legacy—endlessly and obsessively searching for a king that had been there one day but was gone forever the next.

Merlin growled in frustration and slapped the bowl off his table as the water turned black yet again. He dipped his quill in ink and aggressively struck out this latest failed spell on his list; the list of unattempted spells was getting so short now. There were only two left to try, out of a list of five dozen he’d started with.

The uncharacteristic anger swept out of him all in an instant, and he exhaled miserably and dropped his head in his hands. He hadn’t realized how dark it was in his chambers now. His two little candles created a circle of light where he sat, but everywhere else felt cold and empty.

He tried not to think about it, knowing it would do no good, but he couldn’t help it. If Arthur were there, they’d be sitting comfortably in the king’s chambers, drinking their last cups of wine and chatting aimlessly before the fire. He closed his eyes and longed for that time back, craving the sound of Arthur’s laugh. He never knew how much his heart could break at not hearing it.

A quiet knock at his door made him raise his head tiredly.

“Hello, Merlin,” said a familiar voice, and a moment later Gwaine stepped into his little aura of light.

His friend dropped onto the bench across from where Merlin sat and the warlock could feel himself being appraised.

“You look terrible,” came the blunt conclusion.

“Thanks,” he answered, letting one hand fall from his temple to look up at the other man more directly.

Unexpectedly, Gwaine was not smiling, but gazing at him with some great compassion in his keen eyes. Merlin appreciated his friendship and concern, of course he did, but he didn’t like being looked at like that—like he was some sort of grieving widow who needed the sympathy of others in the absence of her husband’s love.

“I just came to check on you,” the knight continued, quietly in the silence. “Having any luck?”

“No,” he whispered his reply, gaze dropping in shame. “I don’t know how they did it, but whoever it was, they’re using magic beyond what a sorcerer should have. They used spells I understand, that I recognize, but there’s something in them that I’ve never seen before—something dark and powerful. No person could have done this without getting power from somewhere else.”

“Where?” Gwaine asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered defeatedly. “If I did, I’d go there.”

“Well, isn’t there someone we could ask? The White Dragon, or the Sidhe, or someone like that?”

“Most creatures of magic don’t care much about what happens in the world of man,” he said, “and those would help us don’t know any more than we do. And I asked Aithusa already. He cannot follow the magic either. If it’s beyond even a dragon’s power, perhaps it’s beyond anyone’s, including mine.”

“I don’t believe that,” said his friend with a gentle warmth rarely heard from him. “I believe with all that I am that you will find him. You are the greatest warlock ever to live, Merlin, and no one loves our king like you do.”

A flash of memory struck Merlin; he hadn’t thought about it since that night, but he suddenly remembered what he’d overheard the knights saying. Gwaine believed, at least to some extent, that Merlin was in love with Arthur. He’d been so worried about that before, but it seemed to trivial now. Who cared if the knights believed that? He would take all the affection his king gave him if he ever found him, and perhaps he’d even push for more—a gentle hug goodbye every night after he helped Arthur dress for bed, his shoulder pressed obviously against Arthur’s as they sat by the fire on hunts, his fingertips through Arthur’s smooth blonde hair every time it looked messy. He wouldn’t care if the man grumpily called him a girl or if anyone else would gossip. He would be too overjoyed to be bothered.

The thought made a new ache settle in his stomach almost like a physical pain.

“I never thought—” he realized he was speaking out loud, and considered for a moment before he continued. “I never thought it could be like this.”

A strong, calloused hand settled on his arm.

“We’ll find him, Merlin,” said Gwaine, gazing evenly into his eyes with complete certainty. “I know we will.”

Merlin wanted to agree, but an ominous thought stole any positive words he might say. They would find him, but in what condition? What if they found him too late? What if he searched and searched for another four months, only to find Arthur dead in some pit somewhere? What if he was dead already, all alone in the dark?

When the warlock did not answer, but continued to stare at the tabletop blindly, Gwaine sighed and squeezed his friend’s arm to get his attention.

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

Merlin looked up, shaken from his terrible daydreams.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

“Then you must sleep tonight,” the knight said in a tone that allowed for no argument. “If you look as bad as you do now when Arthur returns, there’s no doubt he’ll blame me for it. He always did order me to watch out for you on journeys, did you know that?”

Merlin blinked in surprise.

“No,” he said with a tiny smile.

“Yeah,” Gwaine said, standing up to leave. “That was before we knew about your magic, of course, and Arthur thought you had no way to defend yourself. He would tell all of us before we left that you were a clumsy idiot and so we needed to keep an eye on you in case of danger, but he always pulled me to the side and gave me personal instructions to look after you.”

A rush of endearment pushed away the loneliness for a moment, as Merlin thought back to those days. He’d been so focused on keeping Arthur safe and fulfilling his own destiny, he never noticed so many of these little ways Arthur was doing the same for him.

“Don’t make me disappoint the king, Merlin,” Gwaine scolded playfully as he wound his way through the room toward the door. “You know how much I hate that.”

“I won’t,” Merlin smiled at the joke. “Good night.”

“Good night, my friend.”

A few minutes after the other man had left and Merlin had cleaned up the spilt water, he obediently lay down and tried to sleep.

He’d only had his eyes closed for a few heartbeats before hot tears unexpectedly burned them. With a catch of his breath, he shoved away all thoughts of Arthur and his own desperation and covered his eyes with one arm. He wasn’t sure how long it was before he finally forced himself into a restless sleep.

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He was up again at dawn, alining all the bottles containing extracts for the next spell to try, when there was a loud and insistent knock. He’d barely shouted for the person to enter before the door swung open to reveal Gwaine looking considerably more frantic than when he’d left the night before.

“Merlin,” he gasped out, “a traveling merchant arrived this morning. He thinks he’s seen the king.”

Merlin dropped the bottle in his hand; the two of them practically ran down the flights of stairs and across the public square into the court.

The court members and knights moved out of his way as he entered, opening a path to the white-haired man in the center of the room. When the man saw Merlin in his embroidered cloak with the polished silver button, he bowed in respect with a bit of shakiness that comes with many years of life.

“I am Merlin,” he told him, trying to cover his breathless hopefulness with a calm face. “I am told you have seen the king.”

“I believe I have, my lord,” the aged man answered, standing up again as straight as his crooked back allowed. “I am a traveler, and though I often take the main roads, at times I take shortcuts through the forests. I have been selling pottery all my life, you see, and I have found many more convenient routes through places where no one else ventures.”

“Go on,” Merlin pressed, trying not to be rude but trembling with impatience.

“It was many weeks ago,” he began obediently, his brown eyes wide and his expressive features captivating, “four months I would say, that I was just packing up my things to carry onward. I heard voices not very far away; I thought it strange, since I was deep in the woods where I’d never seen another living soul, so I peeked up over the mound to see who was there. I saw two men and a woman, my lord. Only when I looked closer I realized the hands of the second man seemed to be tied and the rope which bound him was held by the woman. He had a piece of cloth tied ‘round his mouth and he was being led through the forest.”

“And you believe it was Arthur?” Merlin questioned, feeling his heart skip.

“Well, I was very far north, my lord, and it was not until two weeks ago that I finally heard the news of the king’s disappearance. I have never had the honor of seeing his majesty face to face, but I know what they say of him, that his hair is golden like sunlight and his features are the handsomest in all the land. Although he was dressed in plain clothing and his feet were bare, I believe the man I saw could only have been his majesty the king.”

“And this man and woman who were with him,” Merlin said hastily, his heart speeding up in his chest, “what did they look like?”

“The man’s hair was black with a short beard, and the woman had hair as red as a poppy.”

“Barric and Cruina,” Leon murmured, the simple description alone enough for all present to recognize the figures—Morgana’s followers, hellbent on fulfilling the tasks she had been killed trying to accomplish.

Merlin had to take a slow breath to keep his emotions under control. A bearded man and a red-haired woman—Barric and Cruina…plain clothing—the white shirt and brown pants Arthur had worn to sleep…bare feet—from being pulled from his bed in the middle of the night…

He wasted not a moment before turning and shouting at the first man he saw—one of the middle-aged councilmen, who was looking on with expectant eyes like all the rest of the people around him.

“Bring me the largest, most precise map we have,” he ordered, and watching as the man and two others he hadn’t even looked at all rushed to obey.

The map was spread over the council table in the center of the room and held down by men’s hands on all four corners. Merlin guided the elderly merchant to the front of it and stood looking over his shoulder while the rest of the room—which had gotten very crowded as news had spread—looked on from all sides.

“Please, show me where you were, as close as you can,” Merlin said.

The man willingly and hastily pointed one trembling finger toward the upper portion of a forest high on the map.

“Here, my lord,” he said. “As close as I can tell, that’s where I was.”

Merlin could sense the others craning their necks to see where the man had indicated. It took the warlock barely a moment to see the straight path that led from Camelot to a great empty space with a single black spire scrawled in the center. He read over the name written there only once, briefly, before looking up to address the merchant.

“Thank you,” he murmured with sincerity, containing his emotions for the time being.

The man’s warm brown eyes sparkled as he offered a crooked-toothed smile of contentment and pride. He nodded once, turning it into another bow at the sorcerer even though it was not customary.

“See that he gets a warm bed in our finest inn,” Merlin told Sir Lowen, “and inform the treasurer to give him a bag of gold from the king’s stores.”

“Oh, thank you, my lord!” the older man exclaimed, bowing again as he allowed the young knight to lead him away through the doors.

Once he was gone, Merlin turned back to the map, and their four best knights—Percival, Gwaine, Elyan, and Leon—all gathered close to him.

“I have never heard of that place,” Gwaine said, gesturing to where Arthur’s abductors were obviously going.

“Nor have I,” Percival added.

“I have,” Merlin said, staring at the jagged pillar of black with a feeling of dread building in his blood, rereading the name scrawled under it over and over.

He could feel their attention on him, and he continued without moving his eyes from the cursed blot.

“Gaius told me of it once,” he said, remembering his beloved friend’s words. “It is a place of black magic, known to strike fear even in the bravest of warriors. It’s cursed.”

“And Barric and Cruina took Arthur there,” Elyan said, a tinge of the fear they all felt in his voice. “Why?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gwaine declared, one hand moving instinctively to clasp the hilt of his sword at his side. “Now we know where he is, we must go and get him back. Merlin?”

The warlock looked up from where his thoughts had overwhelmed him for a moment and was startled to see every man and woman in the room watching him. Even with his position now, no one hardly ever sought him for guidance like this; their eyes were always on Arthur, and he only ever stood close by to help his king make the decisions. He found he hated being the object of everyone’s expectations. Suddenly he’d never ached for Arthur to return more—and for the first time, he had a way to go to make that happen.

“Gather some men,” he told Leon. “We leave at dawn.”

Leon offered a nod that looked suspiciously like a bow before he rushed from the room; the rest of the gatherers likewise dispersed, some going to help prepare while most went to spread the word throughout the palace and into the town.

Merlin ignored their noisy departures and looked to stare for another long moment at the place of Arthur’s imprisonment. He wondered what horrors might be happening to his cherished friend right at that moment, and it only made him all the more afraid that he did not know enough about the place to begin guessing.

The dark spire seemed to be mocking him on the yellowing parchment, its title a nondescript mask hiding whatever it might mean—

_The Dark Tower._

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**Author’s Note:** It’s important to remember that in this AU, season 5 of the show didn’t necessarily happen. So they’ve never been to the Dark Tower before, since Gwen was never held prisoner there by Morgana. Also, for the next part, I’m sure Ealdor isn’t actually on the way to the Dark Tower (from what I could see from maps in the show, I think it’s more north while Ealdor is more west? I’m not sure though). But hey, I’m the writer and I do what I want. :P

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The expedition to the Dark Tower would take two days, at the fastest—and Merlin and the knights were determined to go as fast as they could. They departed just before dawn, and with a bit of help from magic, they managed to reach Merlin’s birthplace of Ealdor just after dusk. This marked a third of their journey, but Merlin could not be satisfied; he wouldn’t be, not until Arthur was on his currently-unridden stallion going back home, where he would be safe.

Hunith did not have to work thanks to the money Merlin was able to send her, but she still did anyway for the good of her neighbors. She was carrying a bucket of water across the path from the well when she realized who approached in the shadows of twilight. With a wide smile, she set aside the jug, pushed back the now mostly-grey hair from her eyes, and rushed forward to greet her son with a tight embrace.

“Merlin,” she murmured, cupping his face in her hand and staring at him as if he were some great wonder.

His mother was the only one who had always looked at him like that, even before he’d worn a silver-embroidered cloak gifted to him from the king of Camelot. Despite the worries gnawing at his heart, he could not help but feel a rush of joy and adoration for her; after all, if she hadn’t been kind enough to have seen the good soul within a rough-spirited dragonlord called Balinor, Merlin would never have even existed. He would never have had the chance to love someone as his mother loved his father.

He startled himself at such a thought, but somehow the comparison didn’t feel strange or unreal. He only hoped he would not lose Arthur as Hunith had lost Balinor.

“Hello, Mother,” he answered, embracing her again more tightly than before.

They stood like that for a long moment, as the knights dismounted behind him and the villagers approached with humble gifts taken from their own homes.

For over ten years, the villagers of Ealdor had not ceased retelling the story of the kind and noble Prince Arthur who had once helped save them from a cruel thief’s horde, earning his rightful place as the land’s greatest king in their eyes long before it was officially true. Every time even the lowliest of knights had arrived bearing the crest of the Pendragons, they had welcomed him with joy; to have many of the _best_ knights stay overnight on an expedition to rescue the great king meant that the celebratory meal and drinks lasted for hours.

Finally, however, as Merlin sat by one of the three bonfires, staring thoughtfully into the flames, he looked up to see his mother pressing a cup of warm milk into his hand.

“Thank you,” he said with a smile, moving his leg a bit so she could settle down beside him on the bench.

She laced her arm through his and squeezed affectionately, and then he felt her shiver just slightly. It was a mild late autumn, but still the air beyond their sphere of firelight was chilled beyond being comfortable.

“Are you cold? Here.”

He ignored her gentle protests as he removed the cloak from around his shoulders and draped it over hers, attaching the gleaming button at her throat to keep it in place.

“Thank you, Merlin,” she said, returning her arm to where it had been.

They sat for a moment in silence, and then she asked him, sure that no one was close enough to overhear.

“Tell me what’s troubling you, my son.”

He sighed, unsurprised that she could see it; he was sure everyone probably could.

“I’m worried about Arthur,” he said, knowing she would have already guessed that. “I don’t know what we will find at the Dark Tower. Barric and Cruina must have had a reason for taking him there. I’m afraid to think of what they might’ve done to him.”

“Oh, Merlin,” his mother sighed, raising one hand to stroke his cheek the same way she had when he’d been a child, “Arthur is strong. You must remember that. He has stood up to their kind many times before.”

“Not for this long, and not alone,” he answered. “It’s taken me much too long to find him.”

“You must not think that,” she told him. “No one could have done more than you, Merlin.”

At that, he could not help but smile fondly.

“Gwaine said something like that too,” he said, searching through the crowd to find his friend laughing amongst a group of boys all with full cups in their hands, watching raptly at he recounted some great battle.

That reminded him, in turn, of the conversation he’d overheard, and about how his feelings regarding it had started to change in a shocking direction.

“Something else is troubling you,” Hunith’s voice broke into his thoughts.

He glanced at her, smiling at how she could always know his heart so well. Even if he could not talk to anyone else about it yet, he could always tell his mother anything and trust she would keep his secrets. Finally, he could say it aloud and know whether the words felt right on his tongue.

“I overheard the men talking, before Arthur disappeared,” he said, quietly even though no one was near them. “They were talking about me, saying I’m in love with him. They were mostly just joking and at first I thought…well, I thought it was ridiculous. But, now…I’m not so sure.”

He thought he would have to wait with bated breath for her response, but it was hardly a moment before it came.

“Did you talk to Arthur?”

He looked into her face, searching for signs of the alarm he expected to see, but there was none. There was only the same softly neutral expression he’d always known.

“I just told you,” he said with a lightheartedly teasing look, “I think I’m in love with the king. Shouldn’t you be a bit more surprised, Mother?”

Her smile brightened her pretty eyes.

“Don’t you remember,” she asked, “what I told you the first time he came here? I knew then how much you needed each other. I could see it in your eyes, in how you looked at him. It was like he was a light in the darkness, you were so drawn to his every word. I had never seen you like that with anyone. I did not know then that this would happen, but I cannot say I’m surprised, not now that you’ve been there for so many years.”

Merlin had not been expecting to feel like a burden had disappeared from his chest, but he did. He released a breath and felt a flood of contentment wash over him; to admit such a thing to himself, finally, brought a slew of new problems, but he had not been in love with anyone since his premature farewell to Freya so many years ago. While his heart sped up now with worries about what this might entail, to know he was _in love_ —him, in _love_ —with Arthur, of all people….It was dizzying, frightening, but somehow so wonderfully freeing all at the same time.

Arthur was going to kill him.

“Do you think Arthur might feel the same?”

The innocent suggestion interrupted his dawning realization almost comically. He felt his brows go up as he half-choked on a _very doubtful_ laugh.

“No,” he drew out the word, imagining all the different interesting faces his friend would make at all this. “No, there’s no way. He’s not that kind of a man.”

“Not what kind of man?”

“He has _only_ ever liked women. Never once has he ever shown any attraction to another man. And certainly not to me.”

“Well, you’ve never acted interested in him either, have you?”

He huffed on another laugh. She had a point, but…

“That’s different,” he answered. “He _married_ a woman. And he’s the king! If he wanted a man, he would have gotten one by now. He could have his pick of the kingdom.”

“So could you,” Hunith stated definitively.

He blushed and looked away with an amused grin, knowing it was a mother’s prerogative to say such things and possibly even believe them. That didn’t mean they were true. And in any case, it didn’t matter now. Apparently he’d already given his heart away to the Once and Future King, though how that had happened, he really didn’t know.

“You must tell him,” she said, as the moment grew somber once more and their smiles faded a bit.

“I don’t think so,” he answered dubiously, shaking his head as he watched one of the logs break apart in the fire, throwing a scatter of sparks. “I don’t want to think about what he’ll say. He’ll probably exile me on the spot.”

A hand settled lovingly on his arm, breaking off his half-jokes, and his raised his eyes to look into hers.

“You never know,” she told him with an intensity rare in her. “He may surprise you.”

Then Hunith rose from her seat and left him to ponder his thoughts, until the conversations around him finally ended and everyone went to their beds for the night.

 

**_To be continued_ **


	2. Chapter 2

The journey from Ealdor to the Dark Tower was nothing like it should have been. The sun rose in the east that morning over the shacks of the village, but halfway through the Impenetrable Forest where the merchant had seen Arthur four months ago, Leon noticed that it was moving across the sky back toward the east, rather than toward the west as it should have been. By midday, Merlin and the knights had gone in the same enormous circle three times even though they walked straight on and did not deviate. When they rested for a short few minutes, Percival and Elyan uncharacteristically fell asleep where they sat refilling their water bottles by a stream; when they awoke moments later, both professed to having had the same dream—a dark tower in a dead land, heavy shadows like death filling it up to the brim with warnings to anyone who dared approach it. It was not until several more hours of wandering had passed that they stumbled across a tiny creature of twisted, mischievous magic.

She called herself Queen Mab and spoke with an eerie lilt through smirking, discolored lips.

_“Left is right and right is left, and the way behind is the way ahead. It is simple.”_ (1)

Simple to her, perhaps, but it had taken Merlin another long while to follow everything backwards until they finally reached the edge of the forest. Here deep and mysterious green shifted into an empty stretch of grey rocky ground, and in the distance, the Dark Tower loomed like an enormous thorn protruding from the earth.

The men clapped him on the back and praised him for his wit at escaping the Impenetrable Forest, but Merlin did not care. His gaze focused only on their destination. The forest had been nothing but a waste of time; the real nightmare lay in what he might find in that tower.

The closer they drew to it, the thicker the atmosphere of black magic became, until Merlin had to stop cold to regain his bearings.

“What’s wrong?” Elyan asked, as they all halted for him.

“I suppose you can’t feel it,” he said, frowning as his eyes drifted around them, wondering if magic so heavy could perhaps be seen as a shadow. “There’s magic here. It’s dark. I can sense it all around us.”

“I’m not surprised,” Gwaine said, taking a couple of steps to peer into a trench.

Unclaimed skeletons of some ancient abandoned army grinned emptily up at them, their armor rusted and their swords impaling themselves and one another like a bloodbath that didn’t go to plan.

Merlin inhaled and released it slowly.

“We must keep going,” he said, walking carefully along the edge of the ditch and taking the lead.

The men followed, ever courageous and trusting, but when they reached the enormous tower at last, a great shock of blue lighting hissed and crackled between the stone entryway and forced them back.

Merlin, startled, stared back across the threshold from where he was a few steps inside. The magic was so thick now, almost suffocating, and he recognized that while some of it was innate to the place itself, some of it was also new. The black magic already present here had been enhanced by a complex array of enchantments—the kind of enchantments a high priestess of the Old Religion might pass along to her apprentices, the kind Morgana might have taught Barric and Cruina.

Percival held one hand up, moving slowly as he tried to cross the entrance again, but just like before a shock of power erupted and kept him out.

Merlin retraced his steps back to them; his friends watched with worried eyes, but there was no reaction to his passing across the threshold the second time.

“It’s them,” he said, looking up high along the wall of the structure where a few tiny windows were fashioned into the blackened stonework. “They mean to keep us out.”

“It doesn’t work on you, though,” Leon pointed out, as they watched Merlin move a few steps left and then right.

“My magic is stronger than theirs,” the warlock answered. “It must be protecting me somehow, making me immune.”

“So what do we do? We can’t get inside,” Elyan said.

Merlin stopped his focused pacing in front him and put a hand to the wall. Just as he could sense it in his soul, he could feel the power of the place in his fingertips. But the tower itself wasn’t doing this; it was the spell _they_ had placed here to keep others out. The tower did not want to keep people out. It wanted them to come inside. It wanted to play its tricks. Merlin could not do anything about that; the magic of the Dark Tower was older than his, mightier, stubborn. But the magic of Morgana’s followers was breakable; the only problem was that they had been clever. They had wound their spell in with the tower’s magic so that it would take hours to unwind them from one another in order to break it—hours Merlin had no intention of squandering.

He had no choice. The men weren’t going to like it, but there was no other plan he would accept.

With his palm planted firmly on the wall, he began to speak and felt his eyes burning gold as the words echoed all around them, filling up the air as the sun began to set in a matching yellow light.

_“Ic bene sé bilehwit wiccedom belimpe greot fulfieldean sé galdru bilehwit mín andsacan. On dagung sé galdru gedrysnaþ ond mín eaxlgesteallan incomon widaeftan mec. Sé galdru biaþ ábirsteep be mec afol. Sé infaer sy geopenap wider sé gewill belimpe mín andsacan. Mín wiccedom abricþ.”_

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**Modern English translation** : “I summon the pure magic of the earth to undo the spells of my enemies. At dawn the spells [will] disappear and my companions [will] enter after me. The spells are broken by my power. The entrance is open against the will of my enemies. My magic conquers.”

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At the last syllable there was a shudder through the ground, and a ripple of energy swelled through the invisible shield around the tower. Merlin’s magic was infiltrating it, breaking it apart from the inside out. It would conquer, but it would take time.

He turned to his companions, who were staring with amazement at the stone walls they had just seen glow for an instant with a power they could never truly comprehend.

“The spell will be gone by morning,” he told them. “Follow me when you can.”

He started to walk over the jagged ground toward the entrance, and Gwaine’s voice followed him with a demand.

“And just where do you think you’re going?”

He turned just before the stone archway and faced the identical looks of doubt and concern he knew would be on all his friends’ faces.

“I’m going in to find Arthur,” he said, as forthright as he could, not wanting to waste time or insult them by prevaricating.

“Merlin, you can’t,” Elyan protested, stepping toward him urgently. “You don’t know what’s in there.”

“That’s why I have to,” he answered. “We don’t know what’s happened to him. I can’t just wait here.”

“Wait until morning, when we can all go together,” Leon argued. “That’s the wisest and safest way.”

“Yeah, Merlin,” Gwaine agreed. “It’s only a few more hours. Surely you can wait that long?”

Merlin contemplated for a moment about what he could say to make them understand. They could not stop him, of course, and even if they could they respected him too much to try. He wished he could make them understand how he felt, but he realized after a moment he could not. The bond that held him to Arthur was something no one else in the world had ever experienced, and it was pulling him inside that tower, back to him. Especially now that he realized his feelings, he could not wait to see him again and know he was there, at his side like he was supposed to be.

“I can’t,” he said at last, his voice a quiet murmur in the stillness of the dead land.

Even though he could not describe it with words, they must have seen a glimpse of it in him in that moment, as he met each pair of eyes in turn. He could see them relenting, one by one, their shoulders relaxing in resignation and their eyes softening with something else he couldn’t quite interpret. 

“Look after yourself, Merlin,” Gwaine spoke for all of them, his voice nearly as quiet.

The warlock offered him a small smile, and nodded to them before crossing the entryway. The corridor was more like a cave than a hallway, and wispy webs shifted eerily along all the walls as he passed. Mixed with armor and moth-eaten fabric, piles of bones lay along the edges of the path as though the skin had melted off and the skeletons still lay where they’d tumbled apart. As he moved deeper, it grew darker until he could hardly see, especially with the sun going steadily down.

“ _Leoht_ ,” he incanted, and a glow of white formed in his palm, illuminating the space around him.

He found that he was at the end of the tunnel, and a narrow stone staircase winding upward was his only available direction. He glanced back to see the silhouettes of his friends lingering in the entrance at the other end, before he took the first step and disappeared where they could no longer see him.

Once he made it to the top, he could sense the dark magic even more powerfully than before. It weaved through the air like a slow breeze, darting around him but never touching him, curving back and forth like a predator trying to find a weak spot. Merlin’s magic was strong, stronger than any that had ever gone against this place before, but it would work out how to get to him eventually. He could practically feel it thinking, like it was alive.

_“The tower is not a real place,”_ Queen Mab had said. _“It is the heart’s rest, the mind’s deepest fear.”_

He had the feeling she wasn’t just talking in riddles.

He passed through a doorway and found himself in a large, open court where he did not need his light any longer because of the soft daylight that streamed through high windows. Two identical thrones perched at odd positions to the left, coated in cobwebs. He started to cross the floor, but the first flagstone sank down under his weight. It was sheer instinct that summoned his magic to block the arrow shooting from the mouth of a roaring gargoyle on the opposite wall.

It took only moments for him to cross the rest of the floor, using his magic to press down on the tiles and trigger the ancient traps before he stepped in the arrows’ trajectories. Once he reached the other side, there was a collection of victimless darts scattered about the floor.

“I am not here to challenge you,” he said aloud, his eyes skimming all around and high up, wondering if this place could actually hear and comprehend. 

There was no response except for the echoes of his own low, solemn tone.

“I just want my king,” he continued, feeling that something, somewhere, was indeed listening.

At that, there was a long creak, as of a door opening higher above him. He followed the sound from the room and to another staircase, this one even narrower than the first. It let out at a smaller room with a single overturned chair in the center. In the far left corner, there was another staircase through a doorway; to the right, a closed door.

The staircase door suddenly slammed shut, startling him, and the other door unlocked itself and eased open to reveal another corridor.

He took a step forward, considering. He had made a request, and it seemed the Dark Tower was honoring it. But he had a funny feeling nonetheless.

He looked back and forth between his two choices, and ignored the open door in favor of the closed one.

_“Tospringe.”_

The staircase door clicked as the latch unhooked, and it swung open slowly as he took a step closer to it. He paused, however, when the other door behind him, as though in a rage for not having successfully tempted him, flung itself closed, then open, again and again before finally shutting for the last time and locking loudly.

Knowing he had made the right decision even if the tower was angered by it, Merlin climbed the next staircase. Like the first, it spiraled up, but this one was much wider and had windows to light the steps. When he reached the top, he was at another wooden door; when he tried to push it open, he found it to be locked securely.

_“Tospringe.”_

The bolt slid away obediently, but instantly it slid back.

_“Tospringe,”_ he tried again, but again the lock refused to stay open for him, reclaiming its place before he could open the door.

He took a step back and frowned at it. The tower did not want him to enter here, and neither did the spells Barric and Cruina had placed. He could feel their enchantments seeping through the building to where he was through patterns in the walls, invisible but battle-ready. Merlin raised his hands to the door and focused all his energy on this one task.

_“Lasa n-uile fil ocum ocus lasa nuile fil indium, atot-oilcfe, gìallfae dom.”_

The hinges holding the door in place burst away into pieces, the spell shattering with it in a screech almost like an animal’s scream.

Merlin entered the room, and found it much brighter than he expected it would be. Though the ceiling was not very high, here were several large rectangular windows letting in the pinkish-white evening light from outside; the rays cut around large stone columns with unintended artfulness and accentuated the dust coating an uneven floor. There was no furniture anywhere, but there were many bags of what seemed to be sand, going by the exposed contents of one that had been ripped open probably by a rat or other scavenger. This had been a storage room then, long abandoned. 

All of this Merlin processed quickly, however, because he was instantly distracted by peculiar formations on the ceiling; they were not growths at all, he realized after a moment, but the ugly and twisted roots of the mandrake plant. Dozens of them dangled like hanged men from ropes obviously attached to the ceiling by magic. Rather than their typical pale shade of grey, these mandrake roots appeared to be unnaturally dark and gleaming.

Merlin reached up and touched one, drawing his hand back when he immediately felt the harmfulness of the potion that covered them. He could not be sure exactly what the potion’s intentions were, but he could sense some definitely mind-altering ingredients in the mix—peppermint and angelica root. (2)

He was jerked violently from his inspection, however, at a flicker of movement across the room.

There were so many wide pillars crowding the place, and the ceiling was so low some of the mandrake roots obscured his view, but he was sure there was some fabric moving on the opposite side.

His heartbeat speeding up, Merlin kept his eyes trained on where he’d glimpsed the movement and prayed it was not merely whatever animal had ripped open the sandbag. His breath caught when he came to a more open space and saw exactly what he’d dared to hope he’d find.

Arthur was sitting with his back against the wall and one arm resting on a bent-up knee. His other leg was stretched out before him, and around the ankle was a rusted shackle whose thick chain connected to the wall near him. He looked almost exactly the same as when Merlin had said good night to him four months before, as perfect as the old merchant had described, all soft golden hair and the handsomest face in the land. The Dark Tower had not taken that from him; even his bare feet hadn’t been dirtied by the filthy floor.

Merlin knew in that moment he had never been happier in his life, and he had to force himself to breathe again as tears threatened to leak from his eyes with his awed smile. It lasted only for a heartbeat, however, before he realized something was wrong.

Though Merlin was standing in plain view, Arthur hadn’t yet looked at him, hadn’t even turned his head in his direction. He simply sat as he was, staring emptily at nothing, looking exhausted and listless and nothing like a man whose rescuer had just appeared to liberate him at last.

Merlin took another step closer.

“Arthur.”

At his breathless voice, Arthur finally looked, but rather than giving a start he hardly even seemed surprised. His face did not betray any strong emotions, his eyes remaining dull and tired. He did not speak or make any attempt to stand as Merlin took another step toward him.

The warlock stopped then, appraising him with confusion as he tried to understand why his friend was behaving so. He took a moment to look around but saw no sign of anyone else. Surely, if there was someone hiding, Arthur would try to warn him.

When he took another step, a flash of _something_ lit up Arthur’s demeanor; it almost looked like panic or rage, but surely Merlin must be mistaken because that couldn’t be right.

His friend leap abruptly to his feet, and the warlock stared at him with utter perplexity as Arthur took a stance Merlin recognized as defensive, one hand curled into a fist at his side while the other was raised in front of him in a commanding gesture to _stop_.

“Do not come any closer.”

The voice was all wrong, too, low and threatening but trembling just slightly with either fear or weakness or both. Merlin almost didn’t care how bad it sounded. It was Arthur’s voice, and it was like he was hearing it for the first time. He was falling in love with the very tone of it echoing around them.

He would worry about the implications of that later, though. For now, all he wanted to do was to wipe that look of desperate fear from the other man’s face and replace it with relief and peace.

“Arthur,” he said, disconcertedly, “it’s me, Merlin.”

“I don’t care,” the king shot back, the warlock’s voice having none of its usually calming effect. “Whatever you want from me, I will not play your games. I will gladly give my life before I allow you to hurt any of my people.”

“Arthur, it’s _me_ ,” he said again, more helplessly, as he struggled to understand what his friend’s mind was telling him.

The king was not even looking at him any longer now, however. His eyes had flickered to the left, and more fear and pain seeped into his face, as though he were seeing something that broke his heart and terrified him all at once.

Merlin looked, but there was nothing there but the beams of light from one of the windows and the dust dancing in it.

“Arthur!” he snapped sharply, trying to reclaim his king’s attention.

But the other man had begun to breathe heavily now, like a child fighting a nightmare that only kept getting worse. Eyes trained upon the intangible vision, he took a blind step backwards, the chain that tethered him to the tower scraping across the floor as he did. 

Sounds like whimpers tore from Arthur’s throat as he backed into the wall, his breathing raspy and his eyes wide with a terror Merlin could could see he was desperately trying to control. His breathing quickened, faster and faster, interspersed with a series of helpless _“..no…no…”_ , and all at once the king sank to the floor with a hoarse cry like death itself.

Merlin watched in horror as he curled up where he sat, clutching at his own hair and whining roughly into his sleeve as if in some searing emotional pain. The warlock could feel it, the black magic here closing in on them, feeding into whatever horrific enchantment had been placed upon the wicked mandrakes. He had never endured the hallucinations they could bring, but he had read about it enough times to know that Arthur’s mind had no defense against their power.

Once he was able to focus enough on the black magic, his own magic instantly itched under his skin, ready to strike like an angry serpent. He was happy to allow it.

_“Forbaerne!”_

Blue flames overpowered the natural daylight in a flash, consuming every mandrake root so that there was nothing left of any of them, not even the ropes used to hang them. Almost before the echoes of Merlin’s incantation died away, the pinkish hues of sunset filled the room again.

At the same moment, Arthur went silent.

Merlin watched in anxious hope as his friend raised his head slowly, surprised eyes taking in the now-bare ceiling before finally resting on the sorcerer. Merlin did not speak again, giving Arthur time and hoping it was enough, as the king hesitantly pushed himself to his feet. This time, his stance was not defensive, but it was still careful as he stepped forward, his clear blue gaze trained unblinkingly on the warlock.

“Merlin? Is-is it really you?”

The question brought a flood of relief to Merlin’s heart.

“It’s me,” he assured, his feet aching to move to him, his hands aching to grab him and embrace him, but he stayed still and let Arthur take command as always.

The king did not disappoint him. Steadily, he closed the distance between them with one hand outstretched; he hesitated for a moment then, but Merlin watched evenly as he took a deep breath and finally settled his hand on his warlock’s arm. Then, Arthur’s face flooded with immense relief; he let out a breath and relaxed his shoulders, which gave Merlin the sign to move at last. Eliminating the last bit of space between them, he clutched at his king and pressed his brow into a strong, broad shoulder.

“Thank God,” Arthur murmured into his neck, as his arms wound around Merlin in response.

Merlin wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry, so he settled for a teary grin as he tightened his hold on his friend.

After several moments Arthur pulled away but did not release his grip on Merlin’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t be sure if it was you. This place, Merlin, it’s—”

“Cursed,” his sorcerer finished. “I know. Was it Barric and Cruina who brought you here?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “They left soon after they locked me up here. They said they would return only when the tower was finished with me. I think they meant to drive me mad, going by the things I’ve seen while I’ve been chained up here. These visions, Merlin, they seem so real. I couldn’t be sure if it was really you, except that my hand always goes through them when I try to touch one. The visions have no form.”

“They should be gone now,” Merlin said, glancing behind him along the ceiling to ensure he hadn’t missed one of the roots.

“They are,” he answered, with such profound comfort Merlin looked back at him.

The look on Arthur’s face, of such peace and solace, was enough to make him wish to hold the man again and never let him go.

“It hasn’t been this quiet since the first night,” the king continued. “There have always been these voices and visions—people I know and strangers both. Some days they were quieter than others, but they never ceased. Thank you, Merlin.”

The sorcerer swallowed the unexpected pain he felt at the thought of Arthur suffering from waking nightmares like that for four months.

“Where are the others?” his friend asked then, looking questioningly behind Merlin.

“Outside,” he answered. “Barric and Cruina put a spell on the entrance. Only I had the power to get in. The Dark Tower is an evil place, but they put many curses here before they left to make it worse than it should be. I put a spell of my own, to break all of theirs by morning.”

Arthur nodded, and then released Merlin’s arms at last to gesture to the shackle encircling his ankle.

“Get this off me,” he requested, “so we can get out of here, please, Merlin.”

The warlock bent down, but he did not even bother saying a spell; he knew just from the sight of it that the chain had been enchanted as well.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s part of their trap,” he answered, standing up again. “We’ll have to wait until morning, when all the spells are broken. I’m not even sure if you could get out the door, anyway, if the others couldn’t cross it from the outside.”

Arthur was silent for a few heartbeats, his gaze downturned as he processed this. Before either of them spoke, however, there was a sound like a roaring flame, and the mandrake roots suddenly reappeared in all the places where Merlin had burnt them away.

“It’s the curse,” Merlin said darkly, disappointed but unsurprised. “It’ll keep fighting against me until morning when my enchantment finally defeats it.”

He turned to look at his friend again, and was saddened to find the other man flinching just slightly from some sound audible only to his own ears.

“You really don’t hear that?” Arthur asked, eyeing him in disbelief.

Merlin shrugged and shook his head helplessly.

“Does that mean you’re safe here? If your magic protects you, the curse can’t get inside your mind as well?”

Merlin considered for a moment, feeling the prickling of the black magic on his skin and evaluating its strength.

“It’s not just their curse,” he answered dubiously. “All they did was enhance what was already here, in the tower. Their magic I can fight against, but the tower is something stronger than I am. I’ve felt it circling me since I arrived, trying to find a way inside. Eventually, it will infect me too.”

“How long will that take?”

He shook his head again.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “It could be months or it could be hours. I’ve never faced anything like this before so I have no way of knowing.”

Arthur’s gaze dropped to the floor and he bit on his lower lip for a moment thoughtfully.

“Then you must go,” he said assertively.

“ _What?_ No.”

“Merlin,” he said, unwaveringly, “the visions I’m seeing, even now, they’re…they’re full of death and horror. I have seen so much…pain…people I know, people I love, dying over and over again, and it’s hard sometimes to tell if it’s real or not. I have relived some of my worst memories in this room and it has felt so…real.”

Merlin felt his eyes softening in sympathy. Arthur had shown so much courage in moving on from tragedies that hurt him, but he could only imagine how painful it must be to experience them all over again, chained to a wall in a dark and cold prison where no one could offer any comfort.

“I do not want you to feel any of that,” Arthur finished, his voice trembling a little despite the undertone of strength. “If there’s even a chance that it could poison you, I want you gone. I know you’re here now. I have been here for four months and I can bear another few hours. Leave now. Wait outside with the knights. Come and get me when the sun rises.”

Merlin sighed and looked to the window, where the last beams of daylight were finally disappearing and the only thing visible was the starless sky, black and void. Arthur may have suffered the tortures of this tower for four months, but Merlin would be damned if he’d let him endure it for one more night alone.

He was shaking his head before he’d even begun to speak.

“No,” he said simply. “I think I’ll stay.”

“ _Merlin_ ,” came the blessedly familiar annoyance, “there is no need for both of us to be trapped here. Go and return in the morning.”

“Arthur, I can’t.”

“Why _not_?”

He considered his answer for a brief moment. What could he say? _Because it would break my heart to turn around and walk out while you’re still chained to this wall. Because I don’t fear anything in this world enough to make me leave your side. Because I’ve never suffered any pain worse than living without you for the last four months and I hope I never have to go one more night so far from you for as long as I live. Because I recently realized that, in addition to giving you my life and soul, I’ve apparently given you my heart as well whether either of us likes it or not, so you’re just going to have to deal with me being as close to you as you’ll let me._

“Because there’s a lot of stairs and if I go back down I’ll just have to climb all of them again.”

Arthur gave him a look like he was preparing a magnificent onslaught of insults, but then the look faded and instead he broke out into a genuine, bright laugh that warmed the space in Merlin’s chest that had been empty for so many weeks.

“I’m glad you’re here, Merlin,” he said with unhidden sincerity, clapping him on the shoulder almost painfully.

Merlin offered him a grin he knew probably looked silly, and was rewarded when Arthur smiled all the wider and rolled his eyes fondly.

“Well, aren’t you going to invite me to sit down, sire?”

“Right, come on then,” the king assented, kicking his iron chain out of his way as he turned and settled back where he had been, his back against the wall.

Merlin followed him, resting against the pile of sandbags close by. Arthur pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them to make room for him.

It was only a few seconds, not even long enough for either of them to think of something to talk about, when Arthur abruptly jolted to his right, closer to Merlin, as though he’d been struck.

“Sorry,” he breathed, blushing faint pink at Merlin’s surprise. “There was a scream. It-it sounded like a child.”

Merlin gave him a look of compassion, glad in some ways he was not suffering the effects of this place, but wishing also that he could know what his friend was suffering.

“Is it really that loud?” he couldn’t help but ask, because he hardly ever saw Arthur startled so strongly.

“It was as if it was right in my ear,” he answered, shifting tensely even closer to Merlin, whether he realized it or not. “It’s always sudden like that, with no warning. It’s worse when they’re distant, though, like they’re coming from somewhere else in the room but I can’t see who’s there in the dark.”

“And that happens a lot?”

“It’s happening now. It’s always the worst at night. It’s easy to understand why they expected me to go mad here. I never know what any of the voices are saying, but some of them are whispering, some are talking, and others only scream. And there are faces that look out at me from behind the columns; often they move quickly so I can hardly see them, but sometimes they stare for hours without moving. Some of the figures run from column to column and then appear suddenly beside me to frighten me before they disappear. Even worse is when I see someone I know. I’ve lost count of how many times I thought I was being rescued before I realized it was just the tower playing one of its tricks. You really don’t hear or see anything?”

“No,” he said somberly, listening to nothing but the dead silence of the place and seeing nothing but the still pillars.

“You’re fortunate to have your magic, Merlin.”

Merlin searched for only a few seconds before he thought of something to distract the king from the mental torture.

“You have no water or food,” he pointed out in surprise, reevaluating his king for signs of starvation but finding he appeared as healthy as he’d last seen him.

“I believe it’s part of the spells they placed on me,” Arthur answered agreeably. “I haven’t gotten thirsty or hungry. They must have wanted me to stay alive without having to keep anyone else here under the enchantments. The only thing that affects me is tiredness, but every time I try to sleep, everything gets louder so I can’t.”

“You haven’t slept at all?” Merlin questioned, aghast.

“I have,” he said, “but only after many days at a time. When I’ve been awake so long my mind cannot take it any longer, that’s when I sleep. I’ve been awake two or three days now; it’s hard to keep count.”

At that, Merlin wished with all his heart he could just break all the spells right at that moment and get Arthur away from the cursed place without having to wait until dawn. He evaluated his king closely where he sat, disliking intensely the shadows of sadness and discomfort he could see dancing clearly across his features. He wished there was something more he could do, but his magic would not work properly against the spells and he knew it. As he watched, Arthur looked up, straight forward into the darkness that had suffused the whole place as soon as the night fell. His gaze remained fixed on that one point, as he saw something there Merlin could not.

There on the floor, though Merlin could not see it, was a vision of himself crouched on his knees. Arthur’s fingers dug into his own skin as he watched the pale, glowing form of his warlock choke violently and a cascade of dark red blood came flowing from his mouth. The dream-Merlin’s face crumpled in agony and his muted blue eyes flickered up to lock onto the king’s as he vomited more blood into his own hands. It seeped all around him, forming a pool in the dirty floor, and over the other voices, his chokes and coughs filled Arthur’s ears and made his breath catch. At last, the blood loss was too much, and he fell forward, his eyes flickering dully. One shaking, blood-soaked hand reached out toward Arthur across the floor, and a few more weak sprays of red erupted from the white lips. Then, the familiar eyes closed at last and the body went still, skin turning abruptly grey.

“ _Arthur_!”

His gaze snapped away from the vision to meet the concerned face, vibrant and alive beside him.

“It was just an illusion,” he said, as much for himself as for Merlin, as the uncertainty of its realness faded from his mind and he returned to reality again. “It likes to show me images of those I care about dying, too far away for me to reach because of the chain.”

Merlin sat back once more, the worry never fading from his eyes; as he moved away, however, Arthur felt something shift in the atmosphere. He frowned for a moment as he tried to decide whether it was really happening, or if it was just his hopeful imagination, but he concluded there was definitely something different now.

“Wait,” he said, “Merlin, come back.”

“I’m right here,” came the unsure reply.

“I know that,” he answered irritably at the implication that he wasn’t thinking clearly. “Come back to where you were.”

Merlin obeyed quickly, moving inches from Arthur’s face as he’d done to get his attention.

“What?” he asked when his friend’s expression changed to wonder.

“It’s all quieter now,” came the awed response. “When you move closer, Merlin, the voices fade and I don’t see anything. Are you doing that on purpose?”

“No,” he answered truthfully. “It must be my magic.”

Merlin stayed where he was, only inches from Arthur, their arms touching, until Arthur flinched and spoke again, his voice tight.

“The screams that are getting through are deafening now,” he said, rubbing his forehead with another wince. “It’s so _loud_. It hurts.”

Merlin watched him sympathetically and tried to get closer.

Then, the king abruptly let out a sharp, terrified cry and jerked away from whatever frightened him. Instinctively, Merlin caught him, so that Arthur’s cheek was pressed against Merlin’s chest. Arthur breathed roughly, whatever he’d seen or heard having affected him deeply. Merlin expected him to move away again, but instead he merely shifted so that he was huddled more comfortably against him while his breaths calmed.

“I don’t hear anything at all now,” came the tired whisper.

After a few heartbeats, Merlin lay back against the sandbags once more, keeping his hold around Arthur firm so that he rested mostly on top of him. Though it started out a little strange and uncomfortable for them both, after only a few heartbeats, each man relaxed and the silence became content. After all, this wasn’t that much different than the dozens of times Merlin had accidentally fallen asleep in Arthur’s bed while they talked at night. They had pointedly never discussed those times, but it made this moment that much sweeter and more natural in Merlin’s mind.

Arthur shivered a bit as the chill from outside increased, and Merlin felt it clearly.   
The king’s white sleep tunic and loose-fitting pants were hardly made for keeping warm in cold, damp towers. 

“You’re cold. Here.”

Without giving him time to answer, the warlock urged him gently up for a second as he undid the button at his throat pulled his cape from underneath himself. Repositioning Arthur to where he’d been, he draped the cloak over him, sure to cover his whole upper body and as much of his legs as he could reach.

The king sighed, his breath tickling the fabric of Merlin’s blue tunic. One arm stretched out across the warlock’s torso more comfortably, encircling him.

“If you ever tell anyone about this,” he said, his voice muffled but nonetheless adamant, “I’ll have you in the stocks for a month.”

Merlin stifled a laugh.

“Yes, sire. Try to get some sleep if you can. I’ll wake you in the morning.”

There was a long, deep yawn, and in only seconds Merlin felt the breaths even out under the hand he had resting against Arthur’s back. Calm now that his friend was at last sleeping peacefully where he could watch over him, Merlin’s mind began to wander in the silence and stillness of the unfamiliar place. He would not allow himself to sleep, needing to be ready in case the tower sent more attacks, and needing to know the first moment the sun started to rise and the spells were lifted. 

However, he found himself wishing that he _could_ sleep, for a while at least, because he somehow knew it would be the best rest he’d ever gotten. Arthur was a warm and heavy weight on his side, his familiar scent a delicate perfume in the air and his breathing a rhythmic, soothing pattern against Merlin’s chest. On hunts, even with no bed Merlin had always slept better knowing his friend was mere steps away. This level of closeness was as good as a sleeping draft for his ever-anxious and protective mind.

Almost unthinkingly, he pressed his mouth softly against the top of Arthur’s head. Careful not to risk disturbing him, he lifted his right hand and stroked it against Arthur’s face, tracing his cheekbone and jaw absentmindedly with his thumb. Closing his eyes for a moment, he made a mental map of all the places where their bodies touched, but stopped himself when he thought about how firmly Arthur’s hips were pressed against his side, feeling hot and guilty for noticing the telltale shape through the thin sleep pants. He’d seen his friend naked hundreds of times now, but in this whole new way of looking at him, Merlin’s mind hadn’t gotten that far yet and he didn’t want to start here and now.

Instead he concentrated on his hands stroking Arthur’s face and back. Despite his attempts to ignore it, he found himself longing to know what it would be like to hold him like this in Camelot, curled up under the thick blankets of the king’s bed.

\-----------------------------------------

Many hours later, red-orange rays of sunlight began to stretch out across the dead land. Percival, who had taken the last turn as watchman while the others rested, tapped on Leon’s leg gently until his friend stirred with a grunt.

“Sun’s coming up,” he said when the other man finally opened his eyes, gesturing to the east where the sky was turning quickly lighter.

Leon pushed himself up and kicked at Gwaine’s leg to rouse him as well while Percival shook Elyan’s shoulder. A bit bleary from slumber, they all watched as, the moment the sunlight touched the stone, a blue light from no discernible source began to grow until it overwhelmed the entrance. The knights shielded their eyes and heard a shatter almost like glass. Then the light was gone and when they looked, there was nothing any different before them.

Tentatively, Gwaine reached out, and grinned when his hand went through where the air had shocked them before. His fellowmen smiled happily as well, and nobly prepared to face the tower’s dark magic to find their king and warlock. Before they could pass through, however, two figures appeared from either side of the tower—one a tall man with dark hair and the other a woman with flaming red locks.

“Did you really believe,” said Cruina with the same sickly smile Morgana had once borne, “we would leave the king here with no guard? Surely you don’t think we’re that foolish.”

After processing who it was that addressed them, Leon cried out wordlessly and the others followed as he rushed forward, the morning light reflecting off their polished swords. Two pairs of smiling eyes lit up gold, and the men hardly got close before being hurled through the air away from the entrance.

Barric and Cruina met halfway and looked down at their dazed foes, the brother glaring and the sister smiling, before they peered at one another with twin looks of satisfaction.

Meanwhile, inside the tower, Merlin allowed the room to brighten considerably before disturbing his lightly snoring king. He tapped his palm against the man’s cheek, stroking his hair self-indulgently as he murmured his name into the hours-long silence.

“Arthur? Wake up. It’s morning.”

His friend stretched muscles aching from weeks of lying on the stone floor before sitting up. Merlin sat as well, and glanced over his friend’s face once to ensure he looked rested enough to travel a fair distance. Satisfied to see the dark circles had mostly disappeared from under his eyes and his cheeks had regained some color, he took the cloak back and refastened it around his shoulders.

“The spells are gone now, Merlin?”

“Yeah, they should be. Here.”

He leaned forward and put a hand on the shackle binding Arthur’s leg. He did not even need to say an incantation aloud for it to come undone, the broken spell now leaving it a simple chunk of metalwork easily manipulated. He felt a flash of anger at the dark bruises it had left on his friend’s skin, but there were plenty of herbs in his supply back home to pair with his magic that would heal it. Arthur, in contrast, gallantly cut off a sigh of relief and stood.

Merlin rose with him, placing a hand on his arm in case he needed it. He appeared to be fine, but he held onto Merlin’s wrist in return nonetheless.

“All right?” the sorcerer pressed, just to be sure.

Arthur looked out the window, where the sun was spreading its warmth and light.

“Let’s go home,” he said, and Merlin nodded in wholehearted agreement.

The Dark Tower was not nearly as active with their enemies’ spellwork undone, but it still cast a strange feeling over them both as they made their way down the staircases back to the ground floor. Merlin could not wait to return to the bright, warm corridors of the castle at Camelot; he could only imagine how anxious Arthur must be to go home. His king was as in control of himself as ever, though, and Merlin could not help but be impressed once again at his courage and strength.

When they reached the low tunnel through which he’d first entered the night before, the sight of proper daylight was a joy to see. They had only just exited, however, when an alarming sight met them; where they had both expected to see the knights prepared to greet them boisterously, they saw them instead tied up by wrist and ankle with gags muffling their cries of warning.

Arthur, whose reflexes were best of them all even with his looming exhaustion, turned at the sound of footsteps behind him. He was fast enough to block the man’s—Barric’s, he recognized instantly—initial blow, but the weakness made him too slow to block the one to his side. The breath shot out of him and he blindly swung around to punch him in the jaw, but he was off balance and it did little to force his foe back.

Merlin, meanwhile, had turned in the opposite direction when he caught a glimpse of a long, emerald skirt emerging from the opposite side of Barric’s attack.

“Emrys,” said Cruina with an eerie smile that looked frightful with her pointed features, “how nice to see you again. I heard your magic was ill. It’s well now, I trust? It must be. Only you could have broken our little enchantment. Your pathetic knights could not have done it. Really, I expected a little more of a challenge from the greatest warriors in the five kingdoms.”

Ordinarily Merlin would have been unruffled by her creepy and cold words, used to the jeering of his enemies and well aware it was all useless talk. This time, however, the last four months lingered like a nightmare in the back of his mind, all his helpless fears and desperate hopes about his missing king stirring up anger in his blood at her taunts. Their enemies had caused great harm in the past, but this time it had very nearly broken his heart and he could not bear listening to her talk.

“You really should have thought about what you were doing,” he told her, his voice low as he bent to the ground and touched the rocks with his fingertips.

He had always had a connection with nature, especially the nature of places like this, but nevertheless he was pleased to feel the trees responding from the Impenetrable Forest far across the dead landscape. A moment later, their roots cut out of the dry and rocky ground and wrapped around Barric’s leg and both of Cruina’s arms. The brother fell forward, losing his hold on the dagger he’d pulled from his boot, and the sister was pulled to her knees with an enraged outcry.

The trees rescinded a moment later, unwilling to risk killing themselves with roots grown so unnaturally long, but it was plenty of time for Merlin to cast a spell that freed his friends.

With a war hoot, the four knights drew their blades and descended upon the pair. Cruina recovered more quickly than her brother, lifting several loose rocks from the earth using only her mind and blasting them out. Merlin formed several small shields to block them so that they did not hurt Elyan or Leon, who were rushing toward her, and then he merely tilted his head to throw her against the rough stone wall of the Dark Tower.

Barric flipped onto his back quickly enough to kick Gwaine and Leon away as the knights raised their swords over him to strike. Gwaine stumbled backward and his foot slipped on the crumbling edge of one of the pits, causing him to lose his hold on his sword. With the others distracted with Cruina and Leon struggling to stand again on the loose rocks, Barric lunged forward, gripping the dagger in both hands as he prepared to drive it down upon Gwaine.

There was a flash of metal, and then the dark sorcerer dropped the dagger and collapsed forward, tumbling into the pit as Gwaine scrambled out of the way. The knight looked with wide eyes to find Arthur had retrieved his sword and had slashed the man’s back open with it, so swift and agile Gwaine hadn’t even seen him coming. However much Gwaine liked to frustrate and tease him, he could not deny his awe at the all-consuming power their king possessed in moments like this. Even dressed in his sleep-clothes and barefoot, he looked as much like a hero as he did in full armor, as he slowly relaxed and straightened from his graceful maneuver and his weapon glinted with sunlight in his hand.

At that instant, a scream of agony ripped over the empty space.

Cruina had just been moving to attack once again when she’d caught sight of her brother just as he had fallen. Her eyes were aflame with fury and anguish as she met Arthur’s—so much so, in fact, that the king felt a pang of pity for her despite everything. Then, before anyone could stop her, she hissed a spell in a voice so tormented none of them could understand her. Just like Mary Collins so many years before at the death of her son, Cruina turned into nothing but rag and dust and vanished into the morning sky. (3)

She was gone for only a heartbeat of time before the whole mood of the place abruptly changed with Elyan’s joyous cry.

“Arthur!”

The king finally lowered his blade completely, breathing a sigh and smiling peacefully when their friends surrounded him with embraces and affectionate claps on every side. Merlin watched, troubled by Cruina’s escape but happy nonetheless at the openness of the men’s love for Arthur.

“Are you all right?” Leon asked, and they all went quiet in wait of his answer.

Arthur looked from one face to the other and simply took in the familiarity of them. When he had been younger, the thought of dying—even alone in battle—had not concerned him much. At the time, he had been ingrained with Uther’s idea of rule, that the king should be distant from his people and the castle should be nothing but a fortress to defend against enemies. Now, he could not fathom the idea of living or dying anywhere but in his beloved home with these beloved people who had made it so.

“I’m happy to be returning to Camelot,” he said honestly.

“So am I,” said Gwaine. “I haven’t seen a tavern for days.”

At that, the knights jostled him with mock-annoyance and turned to walk back in the way they’d arrived—back toward Camelot. Arthur waited until Merlin was close at his side before he followed them, and even more or less undressed and wearing no shoes, the slow journey back to the horses on the other side of the forest was as pleasant as a spring walk through the Lower Town…for Arthur and the knights, at least. For Merlin, who was suddenly seeing Arthur in a completely different and unsettling way, the journey seemed somehow to take twice as long returning, even though they took a shorter route Barric and Cruina had taken to get there. 

All he could think about was how it had felt to hold Arthur while he slept.

\-----------------------------------------

It was late in the evening the next night by the time they finally arrived home, having been stopped at every village by citizens rejoicing over the return of their king. By the time they arrived in the city, the streets teeming with celebration despite the late hour, the six men were exhausted from the excitement. The knights all went off their separate ways, to greet their ladies and relax in their own rooms (and to get at least three cups of wine, in Gwaine’s case). Merlin and Arthur likewise parted to bathe and ready for bed.

It was so long by the time Merlin was done (distracted the whole time by his thoughts), every corridor and staircase was silent and dimmed when he departed toward Arthur’s chambers. He wondered if he should bother going at such a late hour, but quickly decided he must—for himself if not for Arthur. Even if his friend was no longer awake, this was their routine and he was thrilled to be back at it. In any case, just seeing his king asleep in his bed would help him sleep much better.

He unlocked the chamber door and pushed it open, wincing when it creaked a bit loudly. He was surprised to find Arthur sitting at the end of his table, in his favorite chair, dressed in fresh sleep clothes and eating bread and cheese from a platter before him. He looked as though he were ready to fall asleep where he sat, slumped in the chair with one leg stretched out toward the crackling fire, but he perked up when he saw who entered. Merlin pushed away the tenderness that bloomed in his chest at seeing how the other man’s face lit up at the sight of him.

“Ah, Merlin,” came the warm, if sleepy, greeting. “Come, warm yourself by the fire. Have some food if you want.”

Merlin rounded the table and sat facing the fireplace. Suddenly the last several days—several _months_ —of unrest were catching up to him, leaving him feeling drowsy and content…all except for the strange emotions churning in his gut. He had been struggling the whole journey back with them, feeling guilty for every passing moment he didn’t tell Arthur, wondering how the _hell_ he was going to start such a conversation.

In the end, he didn’t have to think of a way at all.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

He looked up in slight surprise, but the king was simply smiling at him a bit tiredly with a knowing glint in his eyes.

“You’ve hardly spoken the past two days of journey,” he continued. “You’re only ever so quiet when you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” Merlin answered, vaguely disgruntled at being so easily understood.

“Right,” came the unbelieving response, as Arthur shifted in his seat so he could look more directly at him. “Well, the only thing that’s changed is that I’ve returned. Were you enjoying your time off to be lazy?”

“Oh, yes. It was so nice to just lie around all day, doing nothing. I was starting to get used to it.”

Even though Arthur might never know the amount of stress he’d experienced searching for him, he still knew enough to smirk at the sarcasm they both knew was nowhere near reality.

“Come on, Merlin,” he said, turning serious once more. “What is it?”

The warlock considered what he would say for a long moment. He had been thinking about it for so long, since even before Ealdor, wondering how he could phrase it to provoke the least trouble. But hours of pondering had gotten him nowhere, and he was as lost for words as when he’d first begun to realize his feelings for his closest friend.

“I’m not sure how to tell you,” he said honestly, looking at the table and feeling his cheeks flush with embarrassment.

Arthur took a slow, thoughtful swallow of the wine from his goblet before speaking again.

“Is it to do with the kingdom? Did something happen while I was away?”

“No,” he answered, quick to alleviate his fears. “Everything is fine. There’s nothing to tell, except maybe that we’re down a few knights because many have been out searching the last few weeks.”

“All right then,” he said, setting his drink back down. “Is it to do with me, then?”

Merlin hesitated. To say no would be a lie, and he had promised long ago—both to himself and to Arthur—that he would not lie to him anymore. If he were to start now, he would never tell the truth about this, and that would make it all the worse for them both.

“Yes.”

That one, quiet word was all he could manage.

“So you can tell me.”

“I…” He gathered his thoughts and tried again, speaking as honestly as he could. “I’m not sure I want to.”

There was a moment of silence as the king processed this.

“Very well.”

Merlin knew the look he was giving his friend was a dumb one, but surely that hadn’t been the unbothered dismissal he thought it was.

“What?”

Arthur leaned up to tear off another piece of bread, and sat back with composed ease.

“Whatever it is,” he answered with a calm surety, “I know that if I should be concerned, you will tell me. Until then, I trust you with it.”

“But it’s about you,” the sorcerer pointed out, perplexed at his flippancy.

Some mixture of fondness and some other, deeper emotion passed over Arthur’s face as he pushed himself to sit up a little straighter and met his gaze evenly.

“Merlin,” he said, “my life was in your hands long before I even knew it was. Whatever it is that’s bothering you, I don’t need to know about it if you don’t want me to. I do wish you wouldn’t let it upset you, though, whatever it is. I don’t like it when you’re so quiet—it’s unnerving.”

Even before he’d been aware of how deeply his feelings ran, there had been plenty of moments when Merlin thought he couldn’t possibly love his friend any more than he did, and then he would go and say something like this and prove him wrong all over again.

This was all it would take, he thought with a great sweep of relief. All he had to do was to agree not to be openly troubled by it, to push aside everything he was thinking and feeling and live as he always had. He could manage that. It would be easy.

Except, he realized the next instant, it wouldn’t. What was he going to do if some beautiful woman came into the king’s life? How was he going to live every day like this without revealing himself? He’d thought his magic was difficult to hide, all those years ago; but at least that was a conscious choice, a flash of gold in his eyes he could deftly turn his head to avoid being seen. This he could feel permeating his whole being. It was as if he had finally found _exactly_ who he was and where he belonged, and it was seeping into his very bones. He hadn’t been able to hide it from Gwaine or the other knights before he’d even been aware of it. There was no way he could keep it secret now, not unless he wanted to create a distance between himself and Arthur, and their relationship as it existed was not something he was prepared to sacrifice.

Besides that, no matter what Arthur said, he would feel simply wrong to hide this from him. Even now, in the back of his mind Merlin was becoming hyperaware of the uniquely beautiful shape of his eyes, the deep color of his full, expressive mouth, the broad strength of his chest visible because of the open laces of his tunic. It would not be long before he could no longer ignore his new desires, and to be thinking such thoughts without Arthur even knowing would feel like the dirtiest of betrayals.

“I feel you should know,” he said at last, letting the words resolve his decision.

“All right. Tell me.”

“Before I do,” he began, earnestly, “I must ask something of you.”

“Go on, then.”

“Please don’t let what I’m going to tell you change anything.”

Arthur regarded him oddly, and there was a sure impression of worry in his face now.

“What would it change?” 

Before giving Merlin the chance to answer, he leaned up and continued with a newly reassuring voice, the same he used on frightened villagers seeking his help.

“Merlin, surely you know by now that you don’t need to fear me. Whatever it is you feel you must tell me, you can trust me, as much as I trust you.”

_Damn it._ How was he going to resist his feelings when Arthur said things like that? How was he going to stop himself from falling more deeply in love with him when he seemed to be _trying to make him_? Since he’d become Arthur’s servant, he’d been longing to hear those exact words. He’d been blessed enough to know they were true for a while now, but to hear them like this made him want to take Arthur’s hand from the table in front of him and kiss his palm.

Giving his friend a soft look, Merlin smiled faintly and gathered his courage to speak. He thought in a flash that he was happy he’d discovered this now instead of when they were younger; he was more confident now, much more grown up and a little more eloquent. If he’d been twenty telling Arthur this, he would have been shaking and sweating….

…Well, worse than he was now, anyway.

“Arthur, when you were gone,” he spoke slowly, deliberately, “I didn’t lie around, doing nothing, not for a moment. I’m sure you know that.”

When he looked up, he found Arthur’s worried look had deepened a bit and was mixed with some surprise. They might have grown in many other ways, but they’d never grown out of their teasing and jokes, and if there was one thing they rarely did, it was drop the facade like this.

“I know,” he answered willingly.

“I was doing everything I knew to find you,” he continued. “In the end, it wasn’t me that did it, but I hardly rested at all, looking for a way. I could barely sleep or eat; many days the council assigned other people to do my duties for me because I just forgot about them. You should see my room right now. Gaius would be furious.”

(What would Gaius say about all this? Merlin wished he could ask him.)

“I started to think…that is, I realized that…”

He paused and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter.

“I realized I care about you more than I thought, more than I even thought I could.”

“I don’t understand,” Arthur admitted, obviously trying to follow him, but the exhaustion he was rubbing at in his eyes was making his mind tired. “What is it exactly you’re trying to tell me?”

“I’m trying to tell you,” he started, then swallowed and sighed, knowing he would have to come out and say it to be clear.

He looked up and met his eyes in what was probably the greatest display of courage so far in his life.

“The feelings I have for you, they’re stronger than I’ve ever had for anyone. Arthur, I think—no, I know I’m…in love with you.”

The king looked blankly at him for a long, breathless moment, and then he blinked and started to laugh, before comprehending that Merlin wasn’t actually telling a confusing joke.

“Merlin,” he started, uncertainly, “you’re not…in _love_ with me. You can’t be.”

“I am,” he whispered adamantly, and looked up again from where his eyes had dropped in embarrassment and, he would admit, fear. “I didn’t know until you were gone, and when I was so desperate to get you back it became clear. I haven’t sought a relationship with anyone in years now, and the funny thing is, I hadn’t even noticed. I spend practically every moment of every day with you, and I’m happy that way. There is no woman alive that could make me give it up. I don’t want anything to change. Only when you were gone, I realized that I would be happy with more as well.”

Arthur had looked away from him to watch the shadows dance on the tabletop, his brows knitted together and his jaw shifting as he tried to make sense of what he was hearing. His gaze darted back to his friend when Merlin’s next words came out rushed and placating.

“I know you don’t feel the same way,” he insisted, “and I didn’t expect you to. You don’t have to say anything, in fact. It’s just I swore that I would never lie to you again, and keeping it a secret felt like a lie. I didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid. I was afraid it would change how you see me, and I don’t want that.”

Arthur watched as Merlin’s cheeks turned red in the firelight and his eyes glimmered with a dozen different emotions he could not begin to disentangle, but none of them were good and suddenly it didn’t matter. He had said it himself already—Merlin had been watching out for him since they met, practically rearranging the world around him to keep him safe and happy, oftentimes without his being aware of it. Merlin had cared deeply for him for so long—loved him, even. What right did he have to be frustrated or upset that Merlin’s love had gone this far beyond what was required of him? There were some who would give all they had to be someone’s true love, and Arthur was apparently the true love of one of the best men ever to live. Even though he may not feel the same, he could hardly control Merlin’s emotions, and in the end he had no right to complain.

In addition to that, he knew what it felt like not to be someone’s only true love and he would do anything to avoid causing that pain in someone else. He had already decided how he would react, but it was when his warlock whispered a forlorn—

“I’m sorry.” 

—that he leaned forward and spoke without doubt.

“No,” he ordered kindly, “don’t be. Merlin, you have nothing to apologize for. I’m not angry. And I promise you this will change nothing between us, all right? You are my closest friend, and nothing can or would ever change that. I do care deeply for you. You know that. I just—”

There he stopped, unsure of how to continue; hurting Merlin for any reason was the very last thing he would ever want to do.

“I know,” his sorcerer interrupted, with a smile that was equal parts relieved and sad. “It’s fine. I understand. Thank you. Really, Arthur, thank you.”

Arthur smiled back, trying to be reassuring, but in truth he was sad himself by extension, because Merlin was and he had always _hated_ that. He wished there was more he could say, that he could just turn Merlin’s heart away from him so that his precious friend would be free to fall in love with someone more deserving. But if there was one thing he knew by now, it’s that life never turned out how one expects and oftentimes it seemed unfair.

He settled a hand warmly on Merlin’s arm and let them both think in the quiet for a moment, and in that moment drowsiness set in and reminded him how very tired they both were.

“You should get some rest,” he said, squeezing the thinner arm under his hand before pulling away.

“Yeah,” Merlin agreed, with a nod, “you too.”

The sorcerer stood to rise, and Arthur took the chance and hoped it was the right thing to say.

“I expect you back here tomorrow,” he spoke loudly, in mock-command. “I’ll need help getting everything back in order after my absence, and your little holiday lasted much too long for my liking.”

He knew his attempt to return to normalcy was accepted well when Merlin beamed sleepily and it actually touched his eyes.

“Yes, sire,” he answered in equally mocking submission, with a melodramatic bow, before standing up again with a genuine smile. “Good night, Arthur.”

The king nodded, pleased to see his favorite smile again at last. (4)

“Good night, Merlin. Sleep well.”

Once Merlin was out in the hall, he shut the chamber door behind him and leaned against it with a rushing exhale. Arthur knew now. He had reacted better than Merlin could ever have hoped, full of wisdom and understanding; he should’ve known he would, but sometimes fear had a tendency to predict wrongly. Arthur had promised not to let it change anything, and Merlin knew better than anyone that Arthur’s word was true and his promises unbroken. So that was that.

With a bracing nod and a shrug to himself, he made his way back to his chambers, making his own vow upon arrival that he would definitely clean up tomorrow. Now that everything was right in his world again, he was happy to go back to the way things had been…or at least as close as he could get whilst yearning to crawl into Arthur’s bed with him and run his fingers through his hair as he slept.

Shaking off the strange new sense of loneliness permeating his own room, Merlin curled up under his blanket and put out the candle.

 

**_The End_ **

\-----------------------------------------

(1) Direct quote from The Dark Tower (5x06)  
(2) So angelica is traditionally involved in bewitching spells, but it also happens to be my real name and that may or may not be why I used it here. ;)  
(3) Reference to The Dragon’s Call (1x01)  
(4) Sorry for interrupting so close to the end but I would just like to point out that this is totally canon, as per The Lady of the Lake (2x09) and The Disir (5x05).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final story in this series will be posted soon. Thank you so so much for reading so far!!


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